Construction worker dies at Strip project

A veteran carpenter died Monday morning at the Echelon construction site on the Las Vegas Strip.

He is Lyndal Bates, 49, of Tempe, Ariz. Authorities confirmed Monday afternoon after his family had been notified.

Officials believe Bates was taking down scaffolding on the ground floor of the Echelon Tower. They said he was balanced on the scaffolding about 12 feet in the air and had tied his safety harness to a piece of scaffolding. He dismantled the same piece of scaffolding he was attached to and that caused him to fall off the wall and hit his head on the ground, they said.

The fire department was called at 7:20 a.m.

Bates has been a member of the union for 11 years, said Marc Furman, who oversees local carpenters unions as the head of the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters.

The carpenter is the 12th construction worker to die in a construction accident on the Las Vegas Strip in the last 18 months.

But he is the first to die at Echelon, a $4.8 billion multi-towered Boyd Gaming project that broke ground one year ago. Marnell Corrao Associates is the general contractor of the Tower and Tishman is the construction manager.

"All of our site workers deserve the safest workplace possible," said Marnell, Tishman, and Boyd in a joint statement released Monday morning. "We will continue to take whatever measures are necessary to keep them safe as this project moves forward."

The companies said they were halting construction at the Echelon Monday out of respect for the fallen worker and his family.

The state's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has opened an investigation and cannot comment on the death.